Unique mosaic murals designed and built to commission. Interior or exterior, private or public

MOSAICS by Jim Anderson

I am a multi-media artist based in London, where I divide my time between mosaic-making, printmaking, painting, and teaching. My work encompasses many different media and ideas, but use of found or recycled materials is always important, and I am keen that my work should be uplifting and accessible.

I have been a printmaker and painter since the late 1980s, and I was elected a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in 1996. My work in print and paint can be seen on www.jimpanzee.co.uk .However, I have always had an interest in public art; particularly since seeing the murals in San Francisco’s Mission District, the astonishing public art projects in downtown Philadelphia, and above all Gaudi’s hallucinatory Parc Guell in Barcelona.

A chance discovery brought me to mosaic. Sometime in the early 1990s - in a light drizzle near Tilbury power station - a girlfriend and I were enjoying a romantic walk when we discovered in the mudflats a vast hoard of smashed 1970s crockery – teapots, saucers, and cups, all decorated in garish floral patterns of varying degrees of tastelessness. We filled several bags with muddy porcelain fragments and carried them home, where they sat unwashed in a box for a few years until, under the powerful spell of such artists as Nek Chand, Isaiah Zagar, Niki de St Phalle, and Andrew Logan, I started in earnest to investigate the kaleidoscopic possibilities of mosaic – an art form which has been around for two and a half millennia, and has lost none of its ability to surprise and dazzle.

The first mosaic mural I was commissioned to build was on the outside wall of a youth club in Somers Town, London, in the summer of 1998. I worked on this project – now demolished - with artist Sally Kendal and over fifty local children.Since then I have completed - sometimes on my own, sometimes in collaboration with other artists or schoolchildren - over twenty-five significant projects in various countries.In 2001, a mural I built in London's Gospel Oak area was shortlisted for a Camden Design Award; and in 2008 a project I undertook in collaboration with the children of Brook Community Primary School, Hackney, was one of the prize winners in the Mega-Mosaic Competition, promoted by Topps Tiles and the British Association of Modern Mosaic. The project in which I take most pride is the large series of murals which I built or supervised - in partnership with David Kimani of Nairobi's Juhudi Children's Club - in various hospitals in Kenya between 2002 and 2006. This was a highly ambitious scheme – a tribute to Mr. Kimani’s organisational skills – which involved input from a large number of artists and schoolteachers, and used the talents of several hundred children.

Statement

I undertake commissions to design and build spectacular and unique mosaic murals.

I am happy to create work for public places or private clients, outdoors or in.